Most people have chosen to vote ``above the line'' where that option has been made available. For example in 1999 NSW poll mentioned above, around 95% of formal votes were above the line. One reason for this is undoubtedly because voting above the line requires less effort: marking one preference versus marking multiple preferences below the line (15 in the NSW Legislative Council). If the Senate voting rules had been used, voters would have been instructed to mark all 264 boxes below the line and correctly marking fewer than 238 preferences would have rendered the vote informal. There is no good reason for requiring a large number of preferences below the line -- it only serves to discourage below the line voting.
A large percentage of voters are also rather undiscriminating. They often know which party they want to give their highest preferences to but don't care much about which members of that party get elected or who else gets elected. Parties actively discourage voters from being discriminating. How to vote cards from the Liberal Party tell voters there is ``no need'' to mark below the line and those from the Labor Party say ``do not'' mark below the line. Indiscriminate voting strikes are the core of democracy but above the line voting is not a remedy for this problem, it makes the problem worse. By making the electoral system less responsive to voters, there is less incentive for voters to be discriminating. There is little point in a voter taking the time to refine their opinions about various candidates if their vote is very unlikely to have an impact due to being wasted (in a single member system) or being swamped by the tide of ticket votes (in a PR system that used ticket voting).
An un-responsive electoral system results in a vicious cycle of declining voter empowerment. Voter involvement in the democratic process declines because it is so often fruitless and frustrating, and as more voters give up wielding what little power they have, it becomes even more fruitless and frustrating for the rest. In contrast, a responsive electoral system breeds voters that are empowered. We believe it is no coincidence that below the line voting for senate elections is most popular in the two constituencies that use the most responsive electoral system for their own parliaments, that is, Tasmania and the ACT (hence the difference in first preference votes for senators mentioned in Section 3.4). Melbournians may claim their city is the cultural centre of Australia and joke about unflattering stereotypes of Tasmanians, but the fact remains that Tasmanians are the more politically sophisticated.
It is a mistake to think that the preponderance of voting ``above the line'' implies that the Senate style voting system is popular. When faced with that system, voters do tend to vote above the line. However, they have never chosen that voting system -- it has been chosen by politicians. The system is undoubtably popular amongst small but powerful groups within parties, the groups which the system serves. However, popularity of the system amongst voters has never been tested. In contrast, the voters of the ACT have chosen Hare-Clark and there was a public outcry when politicians attempted to introduce group voting tickets at the last minute. Later the voters chose to entrench keys aspects, including Robson Rotation and the lack of group voting tickets. Thus the only clear evidence we are aware of strongly suggests that the Senate style voting system is less popular amongst voters than the Hare-Clark system.